Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 11:47:54 -0400 X-Sender: teddyt@teddyt.pop.crosslink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 To: laura@netgate.net From: Ted Subject: A Sense of Place A Sense of Place (F/m) At age 10, Gregory was making progress toward mastering any number of life skills. He was getting passing grades at school, he had stopped sucking his thumb at night, he had made a couple of friends and he was unfailingly polite. But the one challenge his mother, Fern, hoped had been overcome -- and which had caused her dark hair to glisten gray -- had not yet been conquered. Gregory, for all his native intelligence and bookishness, just never could get a handle on the simple tasks of looking at his watch or not getting lost. A sleepwalker since toddlerhood, a curious wanderer in early childhood, he still had a vagabond streak that led him to roam off the beaten track when some unknown spirit beckoned his exploratory instincts. This particular Thursday afternoon he sought and received permission from Mama Fern to paint his wagon in the back yard. She was beginning to trust her tow-headed tousle haired son, but as so often is the case in parent-child relationships, this trust account was uncorked before its time. * * * Gregory was perfectly still on his haunches watching a rabbit take a late afternoon breather in the middle of a copse of elm trees off the interstate a good mile and a half from his bungalow. The rabbit twitched her nose and wiggled her tail, and Gregory was entranced. He wished he could have a rabbit. He would name it Ashley. The rabbit got tired of being stared at and hopped away. Gregory meandered over to the brown creek and studied the little eddy swirling up against the lone boulder in the middle. He knew better than to play in the water, so he sat and broke twigs in his hands, until he got tired of that. He got up, tugged his ground-dampened play pants from between his butt cheeks, and ambled toward a gnarled oak, presided over by an owl, whose first "hoot" signaled darkness. If Gregory were to have been the kind of boy to curse, he probably would have muttered, "Oh, Shit." He had forgotten the time again. He was getting cold. He was starting to get hungry, even though he knew dinner was going to be a salmon casserole with green beans. For all the times he had been lost, Gregory knew at least that in a pinch, he should try to circle to the right. He was getting frightened by the dusky chorus of forest chirps and clatters. He hadn't been here before. He sat and cried for a minute or two, hoping his bunny pal Ashley would show up. When he arose again, wiping his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his cowboy shirt, Gregory thought he saw a glimmer of man-made light. He followed the sweeping flashlight beam warily until he noticed red lights flashing. It must be the interstate. It must be some bad kind of accident. He was feeling sorry for the people in the accident, but he was also glad that he was not that lost at all. The leaves started crackling louder and he heard voices. "There you are, young man," a gruff but friendly voice announced itself from beneath a trooper's Stetson. "Had us worried there for a spell. Gregory, is it?" The boy nodded and stepped gingerly out of the woods and on to the stony shoulder of an access road. The lights and sirens had been for him. This had never happened before. In the past, when he got lost, it was at a mall, or at recess or at the church picnic -- plenty of people around and not too long for him to get far. This time had been different, though. Gone a whole hour. He was sitting in the back of the police car for only a minute or two, when he heard the telltale clunk of the driver's side door of his mother's Plymouth Duster. The trooper led the boy out of the state-owned Caprice and around the back, where Fern hugged him and then glared him into shame. On the short drive home, she was not angry; only heavy-hearted with disappointment and foreboding. "Gregory, this really is the last straw," she informed him. "I can't afford a full-time nanny for you and I don't want to send you to the special school. What am I going to do with you?" He merely hung his head and whimpered, "I dunno." He had heard this funereal chant before and he knew the words well. "I've got a good mind of what to do when we get home, young man," she replied, and before he knew he was talking, Gregory -- who was merely cocious -- asked sadly, "Pants down this time, Mommy?" Her silence confirmed the sentence. He was in no hurry to open the car door when they pulled into the gravel driveway. Neither was Fern. Eventually, the two paraded somberly up the walk, up the three steps and into the living room. Her narrow eyes and tight lips told Gregory what to do. He followed her to the kitchen, his bottom lip hanging as low as his self-regard at that moment. Gregory flipped the silver buckle of his thin belt backwards to loosen his trousers, undid the balky zipper and carefully as any valet stepped out of his pants and folded them neatly on the table. Fern placed the orange vinyl kitchen chair away from the table and sat down, her right arm extended to take her son's left hand as he approached. Holding him against her bent right knee, his mother methodically lowered the boy's underpants. She pulled up the lap billows of her loose floral print dress and placed her wayward son face down across her bare thighs. Finally, Gregory sighed in relief; he was lost no longer. # # #